5.  The applicant was born in 1972 and is currently serving a life sentence in Belene Prison.
6.  On 24 May 1999 the applicant was arrested by the police in Ruse on suspicion of murder.
7.  He did not have a lawyer until 25 May 1999. On that day, at his request, Ms M.D. was appointed as his counsel and took part in the pre-trial proceedings. Subsequently, the applicant found out that after his arrest Ms M.D. had handed over to the prosecuting authorities a mobile phone, bank notes and other items which he had given her earlier and which allegedly incriminated him.
8.  On 25 May 1999 the applicant was charged and interviewed.
9.  The investigation against the applicant continued until May 2000. He was additionally charged with being an accessory to murder, theft, armed robbery, abduction, unlawful possession of firearms, rape and causing bodily harm (to his former girlfriend, Ms G.Y., in February 1999). In the course of the investigation, the charges were modified on several occasions.
10.  On 11 February 2000 the applicant was allowed to examine the results of the investigation and study the evidence collected.
11.  On 19 May 2000 an indictment against the applicant and his alleged accomplice, Mr P.R., was filed with the Ruse Regional Court, and the applicant was brought to trial. During the ensuing proceedings he was represented by different court-appointed counsel.
12.  In the course of the pre-trial investigation, Ms G.Y. had been interviewed by the investigator on 26 and 27 July and 9 August 1999. Neither the applicant nor his counsel had attended those interviews; it is unclear whether they had been informed of them in advance, and there is no indication that they had requested to be present at them. Mr G.Y. was later called as a witness at the applicant’s trial. She appeared, along with a number of other witnesses, at a trial session that took place on 6 July 2000. The applicant and his counsel were both present. When it came to Ms G.Y.’s turn to testify, the prosecution requested that the trial continue in private. Counsel for all accused, including the applicant, agreed, and the court ordered that the public and the other witnesses be removed from the courtroom. It reminded Ms G.Y. of her duty to speak the truth. She declared that she fully maintained the statements that she had made at her interviews during the pre-trial investigation, and asked the court to read them out, because it would be too painful for her to retell the events one more time. All parties, including the applicant’s counsel, expressly declared that they did not object to that, and the Ruse Regional Court, by reference to Article 279 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (see paragraph 27 below), ordered that the statements be read out. After the reading of each of the three statements, Ms G.Y. declared that she fully stood by them. According to the trial record, after that the court, noting that the working time had come to an end, adjourned the case for the next morning, when the trial continued with the examination of other witnesses. The applicant asserted that at that point he had shouted indignantly, so as to bring his wish to cross-examine Ms G.Y. to the court’s attention, but that the court had ignored his utterance and had had Ms G.Y. whisked out of the courtroom. However, the trial record contains no mention of the applicant’s utterance, or of any request to cross-examine Ms G.Y. There is no indication that the applicant or his counsel later requested rectification of the record.
13.  On 6 October 2000 the Ruse Regional Court gave its judgment. It convicted the applicant of causing bodily harm to Ms G.Y., finding that he had hit her and broken her jawbone after a drunken sexual game, during which he had also used a knife to make small cuts on intimate parts of her body. Under Bulgarian law, the injury suffered by her (broken jawbone) amounted to bodily harm of medium severity. The court’s findings of fact were based on Ms G.Y.’s statements and also on the following: statements of other witnesses who had testified about Ms G.Y.’s relationship with the applicant and what she had told them of his hitting her; records of the inspection of Ms G.Y.’s flat, where the applicant had on a previous occasion fired a machine gun; reports of medical experts who had examined Ms G.Y. and who had also testified about the applicant’s state of mind at the time; and a number of items of physical evidence – including the machine gun and the knife used by the applicant.
(b)  In respect of the remaining charges
14.  The Ruse Regional Court also convicted the applicant of a number of other offences: murder, being an accessory to murder, theft, armed robbery, abduction and illegal possession of firearms. In that respect the judgment was based on the testimony of numerous witnesses, statements made by Mr P.R., expert opinions and other evidence. It was also based on the applicant’s statements made on 25 May 1999 and afterwards in the course of the investigation, even though his testimony at the trial had differed in content.
15.  In describing the facts of the case, the Ruse Regional Court noted that on one occasion the applicant had planned to rob the house of a Mr K.D., but had broken into another house by mistake, where he had shot dead one of the inhabitants.
16.  The court acquitted the applicant of a rape charge, mentioning that he might in fact have had intercourse with the victim after she had died.
17.  The Regional Court determined separate punishments for each of the offences – life imprisonment without parole for each of four murders and different terms of imprisonment for the remaining offences (four years’ imprisonment for the bodily harm caused to Ms G.Y.) – and then imposed, as a cumulative punishment, the most severe one, namely life imprisonment without parole. Mr P.R. received the same sentence. He and the applicant were ordered to reimburse the costs of the proceedings.
18.  The trial against the applicant and Mr P.R. was widely covered by the media in Ruse. According to the applicant, many of the publications had assumed that he was guilty even before the Ruse Regional Court’s judgment. He contended that they had been based on statements that he was guilty which had been made by the prosecuting authorities and the police.
19.  On 14 May 2001 the applicant appealed against the Ruse Regional Court’s judgment, arguing that the court had misinterpreted the evidence and had conducted the trial in a “tendentious” manner. Furthermore, he argued that the court had breached the relevant procedural rules, because, among other things:
(a)  the defence had not had an opportunity to examine Ms G.Y. because she had refused to testify at the trial and had thus de facto refused to answer questions;
(b)  the court had taken into account statements made by the applicant and Mr P.R. during the pre-trial proceedings, made on the basis of the initial charges brought against the two of them which had later been modified; furthermore, the applicant’s statements at that stage had been made under psychological and physical pressure;
(c)  the applicant had not been given copies of documents contained in the case file; and
(d)  the indictment against the applicant had not contained a list of all the evidence to be produced and there had been an error in a date indicated in it.
Furthermore, the applicant contended that the Ruse Regional Court had de facto convicted him of an attempted robbery of Mr K.D.’s house, without there having been a charge to that effect.
20.  In a judgment of 11 December 2001 the Veliko Tarnovo Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. It found that the Ruse Regional Court’s findings had been adequately reasoned and based on the evidence. It dismissed the applicant’s allegations that the Ruse Regional Court had breached the procedural rules, finding, in particular:
(a)  that the conviction for bodily harm caused to Ms G.Y. had not been based exclusively on her testimony given during the investigation, but also on the statements of other witnesses, and on other evidence which corroborated Ms G.Y.’s statements, and that the lower court had properly applied Article 279 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (see paragraph 27 below) and ordered the reading of Ms G.Y.’s statements;
(b)  that the applicant and Mr P.R. had been questioned in relation to particular events, and that the subsequent modifications and clarifications of the charges against them had not affected the validity of their statements. The applicant had been expressly advised that his statements could be used as evidence in court. Furthermore, his counsel had attended the interviews at issue and there was no indication whatsoever of psychological or physical pressure having been brought to bear on the applicant;
(c)  that the applicant had been given an adequate opportunity to study the case file before the beginning of the trial; moreover, during the trial he had been provided with copies of the necessary documents and had been able to use them; and
(d)  that even though the indictment had not contained a list of all of the evidence, the applicant had been aware of the evidence gathered as he had previously been given an opportunity to study the case file. Furthermore, the typing error in a date mentioned in the indictment could not have confused him to such an extent as to hamper his defence, because he had been aware from other documents what the date at issue had been.
In addition, the Veliko Tarnovo Court of Appeal found that the Ruse Regional Court had indeed stated in its reasoning that the applicant had attempted to rob the house of Mr K.D. That had been inappropriate. Accordingly, the Court of Appeal amended the Regional Court’s reasoning in that regard.
21.  On an unspecified date the applicant appealed on points of law, reiterating the arguments raised before the Veliko Tarnovo Court of Appeal. In addition, he argued that Ms M.D., who had been his lawyer during the preliminary investigation, had not been able to defend his interests because she had handed over to the prosecuting authorities items which he had given her earlier. On that basis, he contended that she had not been lawfully appointed as his counsel.
22.  In a judgment of 27 November 2003 the Supreme Court of Cassation dismissed the applicant’s allegations that there had been procedural violations, upholding the Veliko Tarnovo Court of Appeal’s reasoning. In addition, as regards the applicant’s argument concerning Ms M.D., it noted that she had been appointed in accordance with the law, that the applicant had expressly stated that he wished her to represent him, and that he had not complained about any of her actions as his counsel.
23.  When he lodged his initial application with the Court, the applicant did not provide many of the necessary supporting documents.
24.  In October 2004 he asked the Ruse Regional Court to provide him unspecified documents from the case file of the criminal proceedings against him, in order to support his application. In a letter of 26 October 2004 that court informed the applicant that the copies at issue would only be provided:
“... if there is an application, duly lodged and registered in the European Court of Human Rights, and it has been proven that they are necessary, [that is] specifically requested by the Court’s Registry in relation to proceedings concerning that application’s admissibility.”
25.  When the Government were given notice of the application, the Court requested the parties “to provide all documents related to the course of the proceedings”. The applicant submitted some additional documents, but failed to submit a copy of the Veliko Tarnovo Court of Appeal’s judgment of 14 May 2001. At his request, the Court made a copy of that judgment, which had been sent by Mr P.R., the applicant’s co-accused in the same trial, in his own application to the Court (no. 27795/03), and joined it to the present case.